{"id":36388,"date":"2018-07-10T14:44:03","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T20:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=36388"},"modified":"2023-11-13T14:11:30","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T20:11:30","slug":"signs-of-a-deep-connection-now-id-brings-tonal-caress-to-the-umfas-great-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/signs-of-a-deep-connection-now-id-brings-tonal-caress-to-the-umfas-great-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Signs of a Deep Connection: NOW ID Brings Tonal Caress to the UMFA\u2019s Great Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Deaf poet Walter Kadiki.<\/p><\/div>\n

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It occurred to Gary Vlasic to involve Deaf sign-language poet Walter Kadiki in a performance. And NOW-ID choreographer Charlotte Boye-Christensen took his idea (with his permission) and ran with it. (After all, he\u2019s on her board.) As a result, we have \u201cA Tonal Caress\u201d running July12-14 at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.<\/h4>\n

Vlasic, a noted Salt Lake City artist, designer and caterer has been having similar creative concepts for some 20 years now and typically pulls them off in style.<\/h4>\n

Never mind that the renowned Walter Kadiki lives in Melbourne and there\u2019s no one in the Utah arts community who knows Australian Sign Language (it\u2019s totally different from the American version). Or that it was going to take a couple of interpreters working with the Deaf poet to deal with a group of Utahns \u2013 it\u2019s exhausting work. There would, of course, be other complications unseen as yet.<\/h4>\n

Still, it was a good idea. And Boye-Christensen has an interest in finding better ways to communicate. \u201cWhile we as humans share a symphony of language, touch and fleeting looks that is truly remarkable, it still seems inadequate in the face of the infinite complexities between individuals and societies,\u201d she says on her website.<\/h4>\n

She goes on to explain that the divisiveness of our Trumpian era (or rather \u201csociopolitical climate\u201d) makes it urgent that we find better ways to connect. \u201cThe intent of combining choreography with sign language is to investigate how we communicate and alternate between the gross representations of expression and the subtle gesture as fleeting opportunity for connection,\u201d says Boye-Christensen. \u201cIn this work,<\/em>\u00a0we aim to seek a deep communicative connection for both deaf and hearing audience and communities.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Following on numerous rehearsals via Skype (can you imagine?), Walter Kadiki and interpreters Karen Clare and Mark Quinn arrived at Salt Lake International ready to work in person with NOW-ID. Gary Vlasic, it must be said, is not in any way left out here but is contributing a \u201cmoving installation,\u201d a \u201cmass of men\u201d\u2014 eight of them, all tidy in tuxes and arrayed on the steps in the Great Hall of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts where this performance is being staged. (Audience members will be arranged in facing seats in the Hall and \u201cchoreographed,\u201d as well.) NOW-ID previously has danced in such places as Saltair, the Masonic Temple, UMOCA \u2013 you never know where they will turn up, but it hasn\u2019t been the same venue twice.<\/h4>\n

Architect and NOW-ID executive director Nathan Webster, Boye-Christensen\u2019s husband who typically is involved with set building and design, this time has taken on the role of \u201cproduction coordinator,\u201d as well as handling most of the publicity, amicably chatting up Mary Dickson on KUED and doing coffee and an interview downtown with this writer one morning last week.<\/h4>\n

Webster really knows what\u2019s going down \u2013 problem is keeping him from being too rehearsed about it: he\u2019s done this many times by now. One trusts an Americano might do the trick, and it seems to be a good start. \u201cThis has been brewing for a while,\u201d Webster says, sipping his coffee, not seeming to intend the pun. \u201cWe had the idea last year. Charlotte and I were dismayed at the state of public discourse in the country: People not hearing each other, people not necessarily feeling like they were being heard. And also a level of separation: People not really connecting in a way that was supportive of\u00a0every<\/em>body.<\/h4>\n

He explains that, as live performers, they have a way of bringing a group of people together, \u201cthe audience as well as performers,\u201d and connecting \u201cperhaps in a different way than a visual artist with a painting on the wall. There\u2019s a chance for a more live, contemporary expression of communication.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Webster says that when Vlasic mentioned that he was working on an installation piece \u201cin collaboration with a poet who happened to be deaf, we thought maybe we should combine all of these things. But we grasped that idea and it set off a few potentials and ideas in our brains. I am not a dancer or performer but I see a lot of performances and it\u2019s always interesting for me to see how ideas might get expressed in movement, not using spoken language but it still communicates.\u201d It also fascinates him to see how an audience tries to understand and talk about what they\u2019ve seen. \u201cMost people don\u2019t have the language to speak about it,\u201d he observes. \u201cAt least with Charlotte\u2019s choreography; it\u2019s very abstract, primal, emotional, in the dance world they might say it\u2019s a kinesthetic communication. So the potential for working with a Deaf poet raised a few ideas in that it does represent a language, it represents words.\u201d<\/h4>\n

He explains that they didn\u2019t understand Kadiki\u2019s sign language \u201cas a language\u201d so responded to it very much as they would a dance. \u201cAn emotion, something that we feel, that we see in the expression in his face, in his body language, his hand movement. That was kind of the seed of the idea, actually. We don\u2019t always know where these ideas will end up. We\u00a0definitely<\/em>\u00a0don\u2019t,\u201c says Webster with a smile. But they combined things in the rehearsal process, and by this time had the written poems that went along with the hand movements.<\/h4>\n

Since they were doing so much of this work together online, Webster says, \u201cIt was kind of an added consciousness of how we communicate, you know?\u201d For example, they had to be more aware of, say, having Webster and Vlasic and Boye-Christensen there together and, on the other side of the world, Kadiki and an interpreter and maybe another person.<\/h4>\n

\u201cYou know our tendency to talk all at once, or to talk over each other or at a different pace \u2013 this required us to slow down,\u201d says Webster. \u201cThe interpreter needed to hear just one person. We had to be aware that we would speak, the interpreter would hear, the interpreter would translate to Walter, he would sign to the interpreter and it would come back to us. So an attentiveness to body language was essential; there were a lot of interesting discoveries in this process. Slow down, hear people, don\u2019t talk over each other, there\u2019s a rhythm to that. Charlotte has become quite aware of that, of how she\u2019s communicating and really concentrating and focusing on one person at a time. She\u2019s used to talking to the whole company!\u201d Webster says.<\/h4>\n

They are delighted with the UMFA space in the Great Hall. \u201cWe\u2019re always looking for places that speak to us, that have an architectural presence, where they want us to be there,\u201d he says. And in that space there is an exhibit by world-renowned contemporary artist Spencer Finch. \u201cHe has walked around the Great Salt Lake and recorded colors of the landscape and what he saw around the lake and placed those little color chips around the Great Hall with a little recording of where those were,\u201d Webster explains. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting, too, because we\u2019ll have the audience in a kind of U-shape which is a reference to the place in which we live. The lighting [by Cole Adams] is going to be interesting because there\u2019s a big skylight over the whole space and the natural light will be dimming down and the artificial light coming up during the course of the evening. There\u2019s a grand staircase in the space where Gary will do an installation. His people will come down the staircase and there will be several groups of people weaving together: Gary\u2019s group, the professional dancers, the poet and the audience.\u201c<\/h4>\n

Then there are those unforeseen problems and issues:<\/h4>\n

There will be at least two poems translated into English \u2013 pre-recorded into spoken language. The third will be printed in the program. \u201cThat\u2019s been an interesting discussion for us, too,\u201d says Webster, adding that the company has worked with spoken word in performances before. \u201cIt\u2019s . . . challenging,\u201d he says carefully. \u201cSometimes it can distract from the physical kinesthetic part of dance, take you to a different part of your brain. That\u2019s if it\u2019s too wordy. But it can be done. We\u2019ve considered projection, but that takes an audience member\u2019s eye off of the stage. It all depends on where we\u2019re putting people\u2019s focus.<\/h4>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re playing with that. Right now, we think Walter will probably sign his poetry without the words at the same time so people get to experience him and then the words will come in at a different point. At other times, we will have him sign where it won\u2019t be interpreted at all. Walter\u2019s performances are going to be intense. I\u2019ve seen some interesting choreography coming out of this, as well. It seems slower than what I\u2019ve seen Charlotte do in the past, but there are moments that let us slow down with our seeing and feeling of it.\u201d<\/h4>\n
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Jo Blake and Liz Ivkovich perform in the Great Hall of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It occurred to Gary Vlasic to involve Deaf sign-language poet Walter Kadiki in a performance. And NOW-ID choreographer Charlotte Boye-Christensen took his idea (with his permission) and ran with it. (After all, he\u2019s on her board.) As a result, we have \u201cA Tonal Caress\u201d running July12-14 at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":844,"featured_media":36625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1070,1421],"class_list":["post-36388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance","tag-charlotte-boye-christensen","tag-now-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/deep_connection.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-31 23:14:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36388"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70781,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36388\/revisions\/70781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}